


claws in your back

by nirav



Series: shadowboxing with giants [1]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 22:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13600167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: it goes like this: sam, in the context of reign; an evolution in ten parts.





	claws in your back

**Author's Note:**

> things i know about actual real life biology: literally nothing
> 
> things i know about kryptonian biology: literally everything because i'm making it all up from scratch. if you're looking for something that might adhere to broader comics canon, look elsewhere, because i have had alcohol and julien baker songs and that's the entirety of my scientific basis for this

_so try to stay calm cos nobody knows_  
_the violent partner you carry around_  
 _with claws in your back, ripping your clothes_  
 _and listing your failures out loud_  
 _it's more than the skeleton next to my coat_  
 _the black that i held in the back of my throat_  
 _follows you straight into the dark_  
 _the easy way out and the hardest part_

 

* * *

 

_i._

It goes like this:

It’s Lena, again, always, who figures it out.  Just like it was Lena, then, first, who found her toiling away in the back office of an overfunded and unwieldy tech startup, working her way through one cash flow analysis after another while she waited for her job to be swallowed whole by Lex Luthor’s behemoth, trying to find the time to polish her resume and talk to headhunters between working sixteen hours a day and parenting Ruby the other eight.  Lena who pulled her over into Luthorcorp’s finance team, who emailed her the company’s education reimbursement policy and an already-written letter of recommendation for an executive MBA program, who fast-tracked Ruby into the company-sponsored after school programs so Sam could fit school into an overstuffed schedule.

Lena, who’s standing there in her office when Sam comes back to herself, who puts the pieces together, who sits her down and promises to fix this.

Lena, who calls Supergirl in, who promises that she’ll make sure Ruby is okay until they sort this out, who doesn’t budge when a horde of neatly besuited and heavily armed federal agents make their way into the building and hold out a pair of shackles for her.  Lena, who glares and snaps even at Supergirl when it’s suggested she keep her distance from Sam.

The shackles are heavy and Sam watches as they’re fitted to her wrists, exhausted and shaking and so, so scared because there’s something inside her, something pushing at the back of her head and burning behind her sternum, pushing against her fear, her conscience, the soft warmth that is the love for her daughter.  They’re heavy and her hands drop down into her lap and whatever it is-- whoever-- _Reign_ \-- shoves its way through with a snarl, unknown strength coiling in her muscles and fighting the shackles.

Sam knows, now, what it is; knows that she’s not who she thought she was, that there’s something to fight against, some _one_.  She closes her eyes and focuses on the image of her daughter and keeps her limbs still, barely, long enough for Supergirl to plunge a needle into her neck and her whole body to go limp.

Somewhere in the background as she starts to lose consciousness is Supergirl’s apology and, more powerfully, Lena’s hands grabbing onto hers and holding tight.

 

* * *

_ii._

It goes like this:

Because she knows now-- because she’s stronger?  Because Reign doesn’t care anymore?  Because there’s nothing left to lose in the splitting pain in her temples every time she tries to push Reign out?-- she can fight it.  Barely.  For moments, seconds, short flashes of time, she’s _Sam_ again.

She pushes Reign away and it’s like her body is one huge fault line, barely held together over splintering cracks and sharp broken pieces stabbing against each other.  It _hurts_ , fighting so hard, and she can’t make her hands move or her feet take a step.  All she can do is get her eyes open, vision blurring and wavering and barely catching hold of a cell, of armed guards, of Supergirl and another alien and Alex-- _Alex?_ \-- all tensed and defensive in front of her.

It’s too much, and she loses again, Reign shoving her back into a vault.

 

* * *

_iii._

It goes like this:

Everything is black and Sam is _Sam_ but there’s nothing around her, just dark and empty and endless.  Then there’s Ruby, just barely too far away, scared and shaking and reaching for Sam, and her feet won’t move and arms can’t reach and suddenly, then, there is Reign, hauling Ruby over her shoulder and marching away, a whole universe of empty space echoing with Ruby screaming and Sam still can’t move and--

 

* * *

_iv._

It goes like this:

Sam fights her way past Reign and snaps into the present, in a different cell with less space and more light, green and heavy and pushing her down.  Her legs buckle and the concrete cracks under her kneecaps when she falls.  Her fingers dig into the floor, already bruised and bloody, and fresh scrapes split open her skin--Reign’s skin-- and bleed onto the concrete.

“Sam.”

She looks up, slow, shaking, to see Lena and Alex crouched on the floor on the other side of the clear cell wall, inches away and so far out of reach.  

“Ruby?” It’s all she can manage to say, shoulders shaking and head aching under the effort of splitting herself between speaking and keeping Reign back.

“She’s with Supergirl,” Alex says quickly.  “Safest kid in the world.”

“We’re going to help you,” Lena says, soft and sure.  Her hand presses against the glass and Sam’s fingers twitch, wanting to reach for her friend, but instead they curl into a fist and slam into the ground again instead and Reign pushes back until something slams down onto the both of them, tearing skin and snapping bones and  _hurting_ , and it's both Sam and Reign that scream.

 

* * *

_v._

It goes like this:

She wakes up and she’s pinned to a table.  The same glowing green weight holds at her wrists, her knees, her forehead, her spine.  Kryptonite, Alex had explained once, rushed and brief and so, so sad, one of the moments where Sam had been Sam.  Her whole body hurts, worse even than childbirth, and a pitiful whine scrapes at her throat.

Alex is there, jaw tight and one gloved hand soft on Sam’s shoulder.  She blinks at the change from Reign to Sam and pauses, breathes, smiles softly.  

“We’re getting you back.”  She leans down to whisper it in Sam’s ear, hand squeezing her shoulder carefully.  “We figured out how to get rid of her.”

She glances over her shoulder and rattles out a “ _Wait!”_ , turns back and leans back into Sam’s eyeline.  “Ruby’s with Kara,” she adds softly.  “She’s fine.”

Sam tries to nod and can’t, chin held tight with a Kryptonite shackle, and Alex’s jaw goes tight, hand careful on Sam’s shoulder, before she nods and accepts a needle from someone.  There's a moment of panic, where Sam's heart monitor speeds up and her hands clench and pain flashes through her entire body because she's _Sam_ , right now, and petrified of needles.  Alex waits and keeps talking to her, soft and calm and warm, free hand on her cheek and eyes locked onto hers until she can breathe normally again.  She waits, patient, unafraid, not looking away, until Sam is ready and she can inject the needle into the IV leading into Sam’s arm. Cold rushes through her veins for long seconds, and she passes out, Alex's hand back on her cheek once more.

 

* * *

_vi._

It goes like this:

Sam wakes up as Sam.  Both of her arms and one leg are in casts and there’s an oxygen mask over her mouth, she’s still held down by glowing green shackles, she’s in an isolated cell, but she’s _her_.  There’s no pressure in her head where Reign fought for control, no frayed edges of her consciousness losing ground against Reign’s determination.

She’s Sam.  Just Sam.

 

* * *

_vii._

It goes like this:

Kara is sitting at her bedside, typing speedily away at her laptop and wrinkling her nose.  She nearly throws her laptop when Sam coughs.

“Hey!”  She leaps to her feet, sending her chair skidding back across the room.  Her hands hover over Sam, fingers flexing in the air, and she sucks in a deep breath.  “How are you feeling?  Are you in pain?”

Sam blinks, slow and uncertain, trying to focus on the blurred edges of Kara and her concern.  Her hand moves, slow, unwieldy, weighted down by cast and shackle, dragging slowly towards the oxygen mask.

“Oh, here, I can--” Kara reaches for her, so careful, so gentle, and pulls the mask off of her.  Sam licks at her lips, wincing when her tongue hits a coppery spot of damage.  

“Is it over?” Sam finally says.

“It-- yes,” Kara says.  She shoves her hands into her pockets.  “The--we-- Reign is gone.”

“How?”

Kara pauses, fidgeting with her glasses and clearing her throat. “I, uh-- Alex is probably a better person to explain it,” she says after a long moment.  “She’s the doctor.”

“Where am I?”

“Um,” Kara says.  “So, you see, there’s a federal agency that deals with alien threats called the DEO.  It’s actually where Alex works.  And I kind of do, too.  You’ve been here the whole time.”

Sam stares at her, sorting groggily through each piece of information as it comes.  “Alex isn’t FBI?”

“Well, I mean,” Kara says with a laugh and a shrug.  “She is when she needs to be.  They have pretty wacky jurisdiction over just about anything.”

“And you’re also an agent?”  Sam squints at her, trying to pull together an image of Kara Danvers with a gun.

“I--no!” Kara laughs again, forced and too-loud, clears her throat, tugs at the edges of her sweater.  “Actually, I-- well.  Am kinda...you know...Supergirl?”

Sam stares at her, turning over the words in her head.  “You’re what?”

“Surprise?” Kara says weakly.  

Sam blinks, shaking her head and regretting it immediately.  Shards of pain lance through her head, skittering down her spine and into her arms and legs.  She grinds her teeth together, trying to hold in a sob, reaching for the sound of Kara’s concerned chatter as a focal point, an anchor, anything that isn’t the pain.

“You’re Supergirl,” she says once the pain settles into a dull ache.  “So when Alex said Ruby was with Supergirl--”

“That was me,” Kara says.  

“How--” Sam starts, pauses, swallows, still not ready to ask.  “She’s okay, right?”

“Safe and sound,” Kara says firmly.  “She’s been splitting time with Lena and Alex and all of us.  There wasn’t a safer kid in the whole world during all of this than Ruby.”  She finally reaches out to touch Sam, covering one damaged hand with her own.  

“She asks about you every day.”  Her voice softens and Sam’s eyes shut again, teeth unclenching, as she sinks into the knowledge that her daughter is safe.  

“Does she know?”

“She does,” Kara says carefully.  “We tried to fake it for a while, but there was a-- a thing--”

“What?”

“Um,” Kara says.  “One of Ruby’s teachers told the school Ruby had missed too many classes, they couldn’t reach you, and--your...adoptive mother showed up trying to claim custody.”

“She _what_ \--”

“We didn’t let her!” Kara rushes out.  She holds onto Sam’s hand, firm and solid against the tremors pushing through her body.  “We...kind of have a shapeshifter, we handled it, don’t worry.  Lena told us what she did, there was no way any of us were going to let her near Ruby.”  She pauses, smiles, grips Sam’s hand tighter.  “I actually had to stop Alex from trying to shoot her, to be honest.  She was _not_ happy when that woman showed up.”

“How long?”

Kara wavers, and Sam repeats it, voice cracking painfully.

“Four months,” Kara says softly.  “It took us almost three months to--to figure out how to get rid of her, and you’ve been unconscious since then.”

“Four months,” Sam mumbles.  Her eyes sting and she blinks against the tears because she missed almost half a year of her daughter’s life, she’s been gone for four months--

The door to her room--cell?-- opens abruptly and suddenly the room is full of Alex and Lena and some doctor Sam’s never seen before.  The doctor barrels through and sets to checking Sam’s vitals immediately, but Sam’s focus falls entirely on Alex and Lena and Kara, all standing at her bedside and smiling at her.  

The doctor gives her a shot for the pain and her consciousness starts to fuzz, and she falls asleep, quick and easy, with Lena holding onto one hand and Kara holding onto the other and Alex at the foot of her bed, arms wrapped around herself and head tilting and eyes too bright.

 

* * *

_iix._

 It goes like this:

It’s been a week and Sam can walk (on crutches) and hold a fork (more or less) and stay awake for almost an entire day (ish).  Some of it feels almost like progress, the way her fingers are learning how to move in the cast, how the mobility is returning to her legs.

It’s Alex’s turn in her room, the doctor enforcing stricter visitation rights, and she’s set up a laptop so Sam can watch a video of Ruby’s last soccer game.

“She wants to see you,” Alex says, shortly after Ruby crossed the ball in front of the goal for one of her teammates to score.  

“She can’t see me like this,” Sam says.  “I can’t-- I don’t want her to see me like--”

“It’s okay,” Alex says softly.  “When you’re ready.”

“How am I ever going to be ready?  I _killed_ people, Alex.  So many people.”

“It wasn’t you,” Alex says.  She hits the spacebar and sits up straighter in her chair.  “That was in on way you.”

“I remember it,” Sam says sharply.  “All of it.  I know what it feels like to snap someone’s neck with my bare hands.  How can I ever touch a _child_?”

“The same way Kara does,” Alex throws back.  “She can lift buildings with her bare hands.  She can also hold an egg without breaking it.”

“Kara doesn’t kill people,” Sam says.  “She doesn’t have a daughter, she doesn’t have someone to take care of and raise--”

“You also don’t kill people,” Alex says mildly.  “Reign killed people.  You didn’t.”

“And how am I supposed to know that she’s gone?” Sam says, cracking and fading as she shrinks back into the bed, further from the laptop monitor and Ruby’s blurred form on it.  

“She is,” Alex says.

“How am I supposed to know that?” Sam snaps.  “No one will tell me how you did it.  How am I supposed to believe there wasn’t a fuck-up and she won’t come back?”

Alex flinches back, her mouth going tight and jaw clenching.  “She’s gone,” she says again.

“Alex, please.”  Sam rubs at her eyes as best she can.  “Just please.  Tell me.  There’s no way it’s worse than anything I’ve imagined.”

“I don’t think--”

“Please,” Sam says, half-yelling and half-crying.  “I can’t be sure-- I have to know.  I have to know she’s gone.”

Alex pushes at her forehead, elbows resting on her knees and shoulders folding, and she sighs after a long moment.  

“We have a telepath,” she says eventually.  “Director J’onzz.  He’s a Martian, and they have telepathic abilities.”  She rubs at her forehead, focused heavily on a spot on the blanket covering Sam’s legs.  “But there was no way to get him close enough to Reign to do anything.  She was too strong, too fast, too--everything.”

Nausea edges into Sam’s stomach, and the grips at the edge of her blanket as best she can inside the cast.  

“We needed a way to incapacitate her long enough to keep her still, and Kryptonite wasn’t enough, nothing we had was enough to stop her without-- without--” Alex’s voice cuts off for a moment, her teeth grinding against one another audibly.  “Without also killing you.

“Kara knew that Reign was incapacitated, just for a minute, when she dealt with a woman who can make people feel their worst fears.  She saw you break through her, just for a minute.  When you were you, you weren’t as strong, weren’t as invulnerable.  Still strong, still powerful, still bulletproof, but you weren’t _Reign_.  So we brought her in.”

“I remember that,” Sam murmurs.  “It was dark, and Ruby was there--”

“It was enough,” Alex says tightly.  “For just a minute.  You were you, and you were weaker, and we dropped a boulder on you.”

She shoves back from her chair, pacing the length of the room and back again.  

“You what?”

“We didn’t know what else to do,” Alex says, taking sharp turns and pacing back and forth, back and forth, hands cutting through the air and eyes focused on anything that isn’t Sam’s bruised face, her broken limbs, her fractured ribs.  “We didn’t have the ability to keep her contained indefinitely, and we weren’t sure if she could take over you permanently if she was there for too long, and nothing we tried was working to keep her down long enough for J’onn to--”

“So you made me _me_ , and then all but killed me,” Sam says slowly.  The broken bones, the casts, the swelling over one eye, all take on a new significance, and she stares down at her hands.    

“There was no time,” Alex says, helpless and guilty and stopping in the corner of the room furthest from Sam.  “The other Worldkillers were tracking you, we had to stop you to stop them.  If I’d had more time I could have-- I could have found another way, an injection, _something_ , that could have--”

“You had to,” Sam says.  She looks back up to where Alex is standing.  “You had to stop her.”

“Sam.”  Alex’s voice cracks in the middle of her name, and Sam shakes her head.  

“How did the--J’onn, how did he get rid of her?”

Alex sighs and slumps back into the wall.  “He was mapping your mind when we forced you to take over Reign.  Once he knew where she’d been--she was basically _implanted_ , when you were a baby.  And we took her out.”

Alex pulls at her fingers, glancing hesitantly up at Sam, waiting as she works through the information.

“So you...lobotomized me?”

“Not technically,” Alex says slowly.  “There was no surgery.  J’onn just-- he found where they’d put her in, basically, and took her out.”

“What does that even mean?”  Sam reaches for her head, cast bumping into her temple, prodding for a scar, a lump, a dip, any point of information undermining Alex’s explanation.  “Did he put her a magic lamp or something?”

“Not so much.”  Alex finally cracks a bit of a smile.  “She was an implant.  You’re Kryptonian, like Kara, but you were modified as an infant.  They made you stronger than a regular Kryptonian, but it was also just an implant.  You would have always been you you, but they put Reign inside you as well.”

Sam blinks up at her, tension leaking out of her shoulders and hands dropping softly back down into her lap.  “I’m Kryptonian?”  

“You are,” Alex says, careful, gentle.  She moves back towards the bed, sitting down into the edge of the chair.  “Far as we can tell, without the Worldkiller implantations, you would have been just like Kara or Superman.”

“I’m an alien,” Sam says slowly.  “I mean, I guess I’d figured that out, but also--I’m an _alien_.”

“You are,” Alex says. Her voice is calm, smooth, a comfortable sort of quiet that speaks to understanding, to experience, to having a Kryptonian sister.  “We won’t know for a while how much of a lasting impact on your abilities the implantations had, but if I had to guess, I’d say that your biology will level out to something like Kara’s.”

“I’m an alien,” Sam says again, shaking her head.  “Does that mean--what about Ruby?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says.  She tilts her head, like always, like she had before Sam’s MRI, like she had when Sam woke up.  “I can run some tests, if you guys want.”

“I don’t know,” Sam says.  She drops her head back onto the pillow.  The casts feel lighter than they had.  “Does this mean I’ll heal faster?”

Alex reaches out, hesitant and halting, and Sam pauses, breathes, offers her hand.  Alex’s fingers wrap softly around her own, carefully navigating the space around the cast.  

“I’ll see what I can do about getting some sun lamps in here,” Alex promises.  She squeezes Sam’s fingers gently.  “Maybe once you’re less banged up we can get Ruby in here.”

“Maybe,” Sam says, anchored by Alex’s hand around hers and the possibility that maybe she won’t have to hide herself away from her daughter.

 

* * *

_ix._

It goes like this:

Three weeks pass, and Sam has traded letters with Ruby every other day.  Five weeks, and the bruises on her face fade with the sun lamps Alex brought in, the casts replaced with splints.  Six, and Lena comes for her daily visit with a new laptop and a briefcase full of paper.

“I’m reinstating you as CFO,” she says as a greeting.  “Effective immediately, with retroactive pay and benefits.”

Sam stares up at her from the couch Kara had insisted she needed, laptop sitting in her palms.  “What?”

“You won’t be here forever.”  Lena kicks a well-shod toe delicately against the overstuffed briefcase.  “Quarterly filings, earnings reports, and the upcoming fiscal year budget proposal.”

“Lena,” Sam starts weakly.

“I won’t trust just anyone with my company,” Lena says.  “Or anyone at all, really, who isn’t you.  What happened to you wasn’t your fault, and I trust you, and I want you as my CFO.”

“Lena,” Sam says again, throat tight and chest aching, because it’s Lena, always, again, holding her life together.  “Are you sure?”

“Unequivocally,” Lena says.  She kicks the briefcase again.  “I have a CatCo meeting to get to, and you have some catching up to do.  I’ve told Jess you’ll be working remotely because you’re recovering from a car accident.  She’ll handle your calendar from the office and is putting time on it for the end of the week for you and I to get on the same page about the budget.”

“Right,” Sam says slowly.  She settles the laptop carefully onto the table and pushes up to her feet, reaching hesitantly for Lena, unfamiliar strength still pushing through her limbs even as she heals. Lena doesn’t flinch at the restraint tightening Sam’s muscles and waits for Sam to reach her and hug her before she steps in and wraps her arms around Sam.  “Thank you,” Sam mumbles.

“Purely self interest,” Lena says with a scoff, even as she holds Sam tight and murmurs  _I love you,”_ into her shoulder.  

She pauses on her way out to look back at Sam.  “Ruby’s still asking when she’s going to see you.”

“Oh,” Sam says.  “Soon.  I hope.  Maybe.”

“She misses you.”  Lena pulls carefully at the band on her watch.  “We’re doing the best we can, but she misses you.  She needs you.”

“I’m not sure I can-- how can I be her mom after everything that happened?”

“Honestly?” Lena says,still focusing on her watch and tugging at the latch.  “I know nothing about parenting.  We both know what my mother was like.  But I know you’re not her.  You’ve never been a bad parent to Ruby.”  She adjusts her watch and wipes the face uselessly, taking long moments before turning to face Sam squarely.  “I know it’s hard, but you have to try and trust yourself.  You were you before Reign, and you’re you now.”

She nods, short and sharp, at the laptop and stacks of papers.  “Make sure you take a look at the earnings reports.  I have some things I want to go over specifically.”

She disappears with another nod and leaves Sam on her own with a desk full of work to catch up on.  After only an hour of reading through the financial statements, though, Sam discards the latest quarterly report and cracks open the laptop instead.  It’s a standard issue L Corp computer, pre-installed with all of the programs she needs, and she pauses, breathes, and opens up Skype.

It doesn’t load.  She sighs and slumps back.  Of course she doesn’t have internet, wouldn’t be able to Skype someone, even Ruby, outside of the DEO holding cell.

She turns back to the financial statements, working her way through one quarter, and then the next, then the earnings reports, the cash flows, the budgets.  

“Whoa.”  Alex’s voice pulls her out of her focus and the forecasting she’s buried in.  “What’s all of that?”  She gestures to the spread of documents fanned out across the table and the floor, covered in notes and highlights.  

“Work,” Sam says, rubbing at her forehead and closing the laptop.  “L Corp.”

“Ah.”  Alex settles down in the chair opposite her and offers her the bag of takeout she’d carried in.  “I brought Mexican.  Ruby said it was your favorite.”

“Oh, God,” Sam groans out, grabbing for the bag.  “I don’t know the last time I had tacos.”  She all but rips into the plastic, pulling out cartons of tacos and rice and beans with a groan.  Healing fingers fumble with styrofoam, revealing a collection of pork tacos.  

“So, Mexican food,” Alex says with a grin.  “That’s a big win.  I haven’t seen you excited about food since--well, this whole time.”

“The DEO is great, you know, but the food isn’t exactly top notch,” Sam mumbles around a bite of taco.  She swallows and closes her eyes, sighs.  “This is _amazing_.  Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Alex says.  “So long as you share.  I got enough for sharing a meal with Kara, so if you out eat her and steal my share I’ll be very irritated.”

“Can’t have that.”  Sam’s nose wrinkles, and it’s enough to make Alex laugh, even as she snatches the carton of tacos out of Sam’s hands.

“Actually,” Sam says after finishing her second taco.  “I wanted to ask you a favor.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I borrow your phone?” Sam swallows uncomfortably and digs a napkin out of the bag, wiping repeatedly at her fingers.  “I was thinking I could call Ruby.”

“Oh,” Alex says.  “Yeah, of course.”  She digs her phone out of her pocket and unlocks it, handing it over to Sam without hesitation.  “Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Sam says quickly. “I mean-- Can you stay?  Please?”

“Of course,” Alex says again.  She sets her food aside and pauses, hesitates, then finally moves over to sit next to Sam on the couch.  One hand falls carefully to rest on her knee.  “You good?”

“Um.”  Sam stares down at the phone, thumb hovering over the keypad and shaking.  “Can you--”

Alex takes the phone out of her hands gently, navigating to the video chat app instead and dialing up Ruby.  She smiles at Sam, warm and reassuring, and keeps a careful grip on her knee even as she holds the phone so Sam’s fully out of the picture.

“Hey,” Ruby says when she picks up the call, the top half of her head cut off in the video.  “What’s up?”

“Hey, kiddo,” Alex says.  “Did you finish your history paper?”

“Duh,” Ruby says, adjusting the phone enough to get the majority of her face in the picture, just in time to catch her eyeroll.  Beside Alex, Sam’s stomach turns over on itself, and Alex’s hand tightens comfortingly on her knee.  

“Okay, well, in that case,” Alex says.  “I have someone who wanted to say hi.”  She glances over to Sam, mouths _“You’re fine,"_ and turns the phone to her.

“Oh my God!” Ruby’s shriek pierces through the phone speakers.  “Mom?”

“Hey, babe,” Sam says, her voice shaking.  “I-- God, I miss you so much.”

“Mom,” Ruby says again.  She sniffs and wipes at her eyes.  “You’re--it’s you.”

“Yeah, Rubes, it’s me,” Sam says with a sniff of her own.  “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, I needed to--”

“You had to get better,” Ruby finishes for her.  “Alex and Lena and Kara all told me.”  She swipes at her eyes again, the camera shaking riotously for a moment, and Sam swallows a sob of her own because she hasn’t spoken to her daughter in nearly six months.  

“So catch me up, yeah?” Sam says, smiling as if she isn’t clearly crying.  “What’s going on with school?”

Beside her, Alex eases off of the couch, pulling her hand from Sam’s knee at the last minute as Ruby launches into a ramble about the school musical.  Sam grabs for Alex’s wrist without hesitating, holding her in place and shooting a pleading look at her.  Alex settles down at her side without a word, leaning back into the couch, and Sam relaxes back as well, tilting the phone so that Ruby can see the both of them.

Alex’s phone battery doesn’t start to give out until a half hour before Ruby has to leave for soccer practice, and by the time it does Sam is all but curled into Alex’s side.

 

* * *

_x._

It goes like this:

“I can’t do this.”

“You can.”

“I’m not ready.”  

“You’re ready.”

Sam paces back and forth across the DEO lab, hands shoved into her pockets and shoulders sharp under her shirt.  Alex sits at her desk, watching, obnoxiously calm.

“What if--”

“Nothing bad is going to happen,” Alex says evenly.  “You’re as healthy as you can possibly be.  There’s nothing of Reign left in you.  You didn’t even get cranky when I ate all of your garlic naan the other day.  You’re not going to go all Worldkiller when you get road rage ,and even if you _did_ , you have the inhibitors.”

She gestures to the slender bracelet on Sam’s right wrist, the green-faced silver watch on her left.  It was Lena’s idea and Winn’s design, the kryptonite lacing through the both of them enough to dampen the wilder edges of Sam’s strength; not enough to hurt her, but enough to provide her peace of mind.  

“Are we sure that Reign is gone?  What if there’s something left?  How can you be sure--”

“Sam,” Alex says sternly, stepping into her path and stopping her with firm hands on each shoulder.  “A telepath with three hundred years of practice looked into your head and said there’s nothing of Reign left in you.  I trust him.  I trust _you_.  We all trust you.”

Sam’s fingers twist around each other nervously, shoulders tight under Alex’s hands.  Her wrists have healed completely, her leg as well; the only remnants of her injuries is a stubborn line of scar tissue on her ribcage and a slightly misaligned pinky finger.  

“Are you sure?” she asks again.  

“I am,” Alex says.  She catches Sam’s eyes and doesn’t let her look away.  “You’re okay.  And you’re going to keep being okay.  There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“How are you always so certain?” Sam mumbles.  

“Because I know you,” Alex says, hands still solid on her shoulders.  “Because you spent nearly a year living in the equivalent of a studio apartment with no windows underground in a government bunker.  Because you would have spent the rest of your life here if we hadn’t convinced you that you were okay to leave.”

Sam stares at her, breath shaky and chest tight, for long seconds before she finally nods and sucks in a deep breath.  “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I’m ready.”  She nods again and one hand drifts up to curl around Alex’s wrist.  “Thank you.  Really.”

“Of course,” Alex says softly.  Her free hand presses against Sam’s cheek for the briefest of moments.  

“I don’t know how I would have done this without you or Lena or Kara,” Sam says.  “Not just-- but after, everything after.  I get my life back because of you.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex says with a not at all modest shrug.  “In the job description.”

“Practically adopting a teenager is in the job description?” Sam’s eyebrow arches up, and Alex grins at her.  

“Maybe,” she says with another shrug  She clears her throat, carefully, falsely, and Sam's eyebrow crawls even higher.  “But if you think it’s that big a deal, maybe you can let me take you out to dinner after you’re settled.  So we can square up and all.”

“Yeah,” Sam says softly.  “I think that would be great.”  Her hand tightens around Alex’s wrist.

A knock sounds on the door to the lab, and Sam takes her time letting go of Alex.  J’onn waits patiently, hands locked behind his back.

“Ms. Arias,” he says, calm and gruff as always.  “There’s someone here to see you.”

Sam takes a deep breath and looks back to Alex’s encouraging nod before she sets off towards the door.

“Wait!” Alex says suddenly.  She hurries over and presses something into the pocket Sam’s jeans, catching Sam’s eye holding it for a few beats longer than is necessary, long enough for J’onn to clear his throat and glare at her in that way that he does when he’s just overhead a thought he severely did not want to hear.  “Okay, there you go.  Don’t keep the lady waiting.”

She shooes them out of the lab with flapping hands, and Sam’s halfway down the hallway to where Ruby’s waiting so they can go home-- _finally_ , home, after nearly a year-- before she digs into her pocket and pulls out an orange lollipop.  

 

* * *

 

 

 _when it won't leave me alone_  
_i'm better off learning how to be_  
_living with demons i've mistaken for saints_  
_if you keep it between us i think they're the same_  
_i think i can love the sickness you made_  
_cos i take it all back, i change my mind_  
_i wanted to stay, i wanted to stay_

 

**Author's Note:**

> i would be wholly remiss if i didn't acknowledge the fact that i did _not_ come up with the idea of the bracelet inhibitors on my own. i soullessly and shamelessly stole them from [this magnificent piece of art](https://plastic-pipes.tumblr.com/post/170298829523/agent-reign-recovery-l-corp-couch-naps-twitter) by [plastic pipes](https://plastic-pipes.tumblr.com/) on tumblr.


End file.
